Why Bournemouth should be Dorset's new emergency hospital, by Tony Spotswood

In May as part of a £2.75million review of Dorset’s health services led by the county’s Clinical Commissioning Group, it was proposed making one of Poole Hospital or Royal Bournemouth Hospital the county’s ‘major emergency hospital’.

The other hospital would become a ‘major planned care hospital’, with round the clock urgent care provided by GPs with nurse practitioner support.

And in an interview, Royal Bournemouth Hospital’s chief executive Tony Spotswood told the Daily Echo the responsibility for the emergency centre should be handed to his site.

“One of the reasons we believe the population would be better served by Bournemouth developing as the emergency hospital is because the site is much more straightforward and easier to develop than Poole Hospital,” he said.

“It is a modern site and lends itself to further expansion. From the point of view of accessing the site it would also enable further direct roads to be built between the hospital site and the Wessex Way.”

He said that Poole Hospital is “quite congested”, adding: “As various reviews of the two hospital sites have been undertaken it is clear Bournemouth is a more cost effective site to develop.

“When you look at where the population actually lives in Dorset, the biggest concentration of population is in the conurbation of Bournemouth and Christchurch - and typically you would expect your acute or emergency services to be located in close proximity to where the greatest density of population is.”

He also pointed to Christchurch and New Milton having the highest concentration of people older than 85 in England, a section of the community who usually have more complex hospital needs.

When asked if he thought reducing the number of emergency departments in the area was a step back, he replied: “Even if money was no object there aren’t enough trained doctors and nurses in the UK to allow us to expand services at all three hospitals [including Dorset County Hospital] so that the emergency care is provided by consultants and other specialists 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“We have to rationalise some of the hospital care and centre that on fewer sites. But the benefit is that patients will get better care and have better outcomes.”

He added: “For whichever site doesn’t provide accident and emergency in the future, there will be an urgent care centre on that site. The majority of patients that presently come into the accident and emergency department will continue to use their local hospital but access instead an urgent care service. But for those patients who are acutely unwell they will go to the main emergency service.

“The most important difference is that consultant cover, which is up until 9pm in the evening, weekdays and through to about 4pm or 5pm on a Saturday, will be extended so consultants are present throughout the whole week and weekends 24 hours a day seven days a week. That will be better for patient care.”

The Echo put it to Mr Spotswood that the costly consultation process could have been avoided if a proposed merger between Poole and Bournemouth had not been blocked by the Competition Commission in 2013. “I think that’s the case,” he replied. "The merger would have led to the earlier implementation of some of the decisions the CCG will now make.

“Before they do any of this they have to go back to the Competition And Markets Authority (CMA) and have to get them to agree to all this. It still has to go through that competition review. What we don’t know at the moment is how long that will take and what their reaction will be to this.

“The CMA has the ability to prevent the proposals happening if they feel it is not in the best interest of patients because of concerns over competition.”

The CCG will make its decision on which hospital will be the emergency centre in March 2016 based on criteria including accessibility and affordability.

The changes are expected to take between three and five years to implement.